'Science & Tech News' Category Archives

By Halley Froehlich, Postdoctoral Scholar, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara and Rebecca Gentry, Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara. Pike Place Market, Seattle. Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA Seafood is an essential staple in the diets of people around the world. Global consumption of fish and shellfish has […]

We may have to re-think what we know about how the little creatures see. Arthropods such as this Calliphora vomitoria fly have compound eyes. Image credits: JJ Harrison. Insects see the world much differently from us, that much is clear. For the longest time, researchers thought they are unable to see fine images due to […]

Climate change has been known to have an impact the world over, but one factor Chile is concerned about is human remains. Researchers are seeking aid to help conserve a collection of mummies found in the north of the South American country. Thought to date from between 5,000 and 1,500 BC, they are believed to […]

The entire world is abuzz with news that North Korea is testing nuclear weapons. But how can we be sure what’s going on? Well, science has an elegant solution to that problem – and it has a lot to do with earthquakes. The seismological observatory NORSAR at Kjeller, Norway, is one of the instruments which […]

SpaceX, the most successful space company in the world, is just a few steps away from launching the most powerful rocket in the world, the impressive Falcon Heavy. After a successful stating test in May, SpaceX fired Falcon Heavy’s three first stage cores at the company’s facility in McGregor, Texas. The test in the wee […]

Natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey are a threat not only to human life but also to telecommunication systems. When they go down, entire cities and communities are cut off from each other. Mesh networks, however, can get people connected again, and during emergencies they can be a crucial link to information. “It really all boils […]

Credit: University of St Andrews. Scientists are learning striking new features about nonhuman great apes on a yearly basis. Progress, however, is slow and some papers can actually be misleading as a result of some researchers’ skewed views and biases. In other words, our false sense of superiority leads us to perceive great apes such […]

A new species is discovered every two days, while the rainforest is destroyed by relentless logging. The Amazon stays true to its reputation as the world’s prime biodiversity hotspot. A new report by the WWF and Brazil’s Mamiraua Institute for Sustainable Development (link in Portuguese) indicates that in 2014 and 2015, no fewer than 381 […]

Instruments at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia identified 15 mysterious high-energy radio signals which are still unattributed. Brief but intense radio pulses have been recorded emanating from FRB 121102, a dwarf galaxy some 3 billion years away. Scientists working at Breakthrough Listen – a $100 million effort to search for alien signals – […]

No matter what kind of antibiotics we throw at bacteria, they develop some new mutation to survive it. It’s becoming a real problem, even common infections, like urinary tract infections, are becoming untreatable. It is becoming crucial to understand why this happens to learn how to prevent it. Researchers have found that lonely bacteria, that […]